Using People Power to Persevere

Quick Win

Nurturing connections can help us stay positive and deal with life’s challenges.

Try This Today

• Talk with a buddy. Sharing your emotions with a close friend can not only make you happier, but it also may help improve your overall well-being.
• Have faith. Chatting with the leader of your church, temple, synagogue or mosque can provide comfort during stressful times (your fellow parishioners can help, too). Faith may improve mental health and self-esteem, research has found, and it might also lower depression rates. And if you’re an atheist, having purpose in life may offer similar benefits.
• Link up with like-minded people. Try building or joining communities of people with similar interests. This could include a group of coworkers, volunteers, neighbors, sports fans or people you simply enjoy being around. Even if the relationship is casual, bouncing ideas off other people and working through problems together can make life more enjoyable.
• Help others. Giving back can make you feel good and connect you with other people, whether you’re checking in on neighbors or picking up groceries for a homebound friend. Volunteering may reduce depression and even improve longevity, a review of studies showed.
• Surround yourself with positive people. Happy people are contagious. When we’re surrounded by positive people, it can make us feel good and help us navigate challenging situations.
• Join a support group. It could be led by a therapist or by people with core interests. Many large health care systems offer online support groups, as do organizations such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

Why

One of our best tools for enduring challenging times is also one of the simplest: people. Whether it’s a pastor, a next-door neighbor or a longtime friend, even casual acquaintances can help us to persevere. Chronic loneliness and social isolation can increase the risk of developing dementia by roughly 50 percent in older adults, even after accounting for population differences and health status, according to a 2023 advisory from the U.S. surgeon general.